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Saturday, February 12, 2011

The Art of Tron: Legacy reviewed by Adam L.

An introduction from Little Willow: I'm pleased to be posting a review from one of my regular customers, a high school sophomore named Adam. He was hanging out in the store when The Art of Tron: Legacy and Tron: Betrayal arrived. The items jumped into in his hands immediately. (Too bad they didn't glow!)

Without further ado, here is Adam's review of The Art of Tron: Legacy, which has text by Justin Springer and art by the amazing artists who worked on the movie.

Just by glancing at the cover, one can see what really makes Tron unique: shown is a black-and-silver picture of a light cycle. The art is done in such a way that even the simplistic circles and lines have an underlying beauty that catches the eye.

Then, the read begins. The foreword, written by Tron Legacy's Production Designer Darren Gilford, lets the reader see his mindset throughout the project. Gilford talks about seeing the first Tron movie and being amazed at its groundbreaking new visual effects, a media technique that, at the time, had never been seen in such a daring and intriguing way as was used in Tron.

The art in the book ranges from simple sketches to full-blown digital computer images; one can see by the contrast between the two just how difficult it was to establish the artistic guidelines for the film, even with those already put in place by the 1982 classic.

In short, the book illustrates the journey it took to produce Tron Legacy, a feat which stays true to its original while at the same time incorporates new special effects that add to the simplistic beauty of Tron. - Adam L.

Interesting, in the visual FX community, that "Tron" was shut out of that category in the recent Oscar noms. Everyone had thought it would be a shoo-in, so the film world politics around that are interesting...